Radioactive
The book, “Radioactivity” by Lauren Redniss, has a very unique way of presenting Marie Curie’s life. Typically, when reading about a past scientist, the text is very bland and strictly informative, normally only speaking about their work. In Radioactivity, the life of Marie and Pierre is a mix of love and science. The personal stories about Marie were very vivid and painted a very dark upbringing, with her losing her oldest sister, Zosia, to typhus and then her mother to Tuberculosis. Marie was a very intelligent woman that had a passion for science and education. She joined the flying university where she defied the Russian ban on women getting an education. By the age of twenty-four, she had already completed degrees in mathematics and physics.
Typically, when learning about a scientist’s life, it tends to be very heavily focused on their work, rather than about their personal life. This makes it hard to develop emotions for the said person. In Radioactivity, you begin to develop sympathy for Marie through her endeavors and quests. With the abstract art and wonderful use of color play through the pages, it’s hard to not feel emotions through the text. By reading along Marie’s life and experiences, it became more relatable and easier to understand the struggles she was dealing with.
After marrying Pierre in 1895, two years later they brought a healthy six-pound baby, Irene into the world. Marie is at this time nursing her child and tending to her husband all in the meanwhile beginning her research. Most scientists don’t express their personal life when doing scientific discoveries or research. “I shall never be able to express the joy of the untroubled quietness of this atmosphere of research and the excitement of actual progress” (Redniss, 2015, Pg 57). After Marie stated this, it showed her dedication to her work in science, despite her personal life. Even though she had a new baby, she still was focused and proud of her research. Her personal life did not take away from her work, if anything, it added to it.
In the article read last week, Art as a Way of Knowing Conference Report, it also talks about science in non-typical forms. Similarly, to the book, “Radioactive”, they both explain that science isn’t always how we imagine it. There is sometimes more to science and its discoveries than just people in lab coats with textbooks. Science can include emotion and art as well. A quote from the article reads, “art and inquiry also align the practice of art in a dynamic relationship to scientific inquiry and other disciplinary approaches of perceiving, apprehending, imagining, and remaking the world around us” (Executive Summary, Pg. 7). This quote helped explain the idea that science is not just bland and only focused on the textbook and experimenting aspect of the science. Instead, it adds that the emotional and artistic views also come into play when creating scientific discoveries.
Works cited:
Executive Summary (p1–9) from: McDougall, M., Bevan, B., & Semper, R. (2012). Art as a Way of Knowing Conference Report. Exploratorium.
Redniss, L. (2015). Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, a tale of love & fallout. London: Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.
